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Gregory Yurek, Founder,
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of American
Superconductor Corporation (AMSC), is a recognized global leader in the
development and commercialization of breakthrough technologies for
large-scale electrical systems. Under Yurek's leadership, American
Superconductor has become an important leader in high temperature
superconductor (HTS) products and a vendor of advanced power
electronics-based grid stabilization solutions. AMSC markets its
products to the electric power, industrial processing, transportation,
medical and defense industries.
Yurek founded AMSC in April 1987 with
three fellow MIT professors. He took the company public in 1991 and has
raised over $600 million in capital from venture capitalists, corporate
partners, government contracts and private and public equity offerings
to meet the company's growth needs.
From 1976 to 1988, Yurek was on the faculty of MIT's Department of
Materials Science and Engineering where he focused his research and
teaching on the thermodynamics and rapid solidification processing of
metals and ceramics and the development of corrosion-resistant
materials, work that led to the invention of methods for manufacturing
HTS wire. The results of this work became the basis for founding
American Superconductor. Yurek co-founded and was co-director of MIT's
H.H. Uhlig Corrosion Laboratory.
Prior to joining American Superconductor
as chief technical officer in August 1988, Yurek oversaw the transfer of
technology from MIT, established the company's research and development
programs and its initial corporate strategic alliances. In 1989, he
became president and chief executive officer of American Superconductor
and was named chairman of the board in 1991.
Prior to joining the faculty at MIT,
Yurek was a research scientist in the Metals and Ceramics Division of
Oak Ridge National Laboratory where his research on oxidation of
reactor-core materials under accident conditions established the
foundation for the government code on operating power levels in
pressurized water nuclear reactors.
From 1973 to 1974, Yurek was a NATO
Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Clausthal-Zellerfeld in Germany
where he conducted research on solid-state diffusion in ceramics.
Yurek has consulted extensively for the
petrochemical, aerospace, nuclear, automotive and chemical industries in
the area of high temperature materials and corrosion. He has authored
more than 60 scientific and technical publications and has nine U.S.
patents issued in his name.
In September 2003, Yurek was made a
Fellow of Britain's Institute of Electrical Engineers and was awarded
the IEE 2003 Achievement Medal for his work on the manufacturing of HTS
materials. In August 2003, Yurek received the Distinguished Alumnus
Award of the College of Engineering at Ohio State University. In April
1997, he was the first non-Japanese recipient of the Award of Merit
conferred by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency for his
contributions to the development and application of HTS materials. In
October 1994, Yurek received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the
Department of Metallurgical Engineering at the Ohio State University.
In April 1996, he was awarded the MacFarland Award for his lifetime
achievements in metallurgy by Pennsylvania State University and in 2000
he was named an Alumni Fellow of that university. Yurek is a recipient
of the 1994 Massachusetts Columbus Quincentennial Award for his
discoveries that led to the founding of American Superconductor. He was
a co-recipient of the 1974 Henry Marion Howe Gold Medal of The American
Society for Metals.
Yurek is a member of the Board of
Directors of Nanosys, Inc., world leader in the development of inorganic
semiconductor systems powered by nanotechnology. He is also a member of
the Industrial Advisory Boards of the Center for Advanced Power Systems
at Florida State University and the Department of Materials Science and
Engineering at Penn State University. He is past Chairman of the Board
of Directors of the Council on Superconductivity for American
Competitiveness (CSAC) and was a member of the Industrial Overview
Committee for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Laboratory
Superconductivity Pilot Centers.
Yurek is a native of Pennsylvania. He
received his Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from Ohio State
University in 1973 and obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees in metallurgy
from Pennsylvania State University in 1969 and 1970, respectively.
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